PurGen

PurGen One will be the first electricity plant powered by fossil fuels that will sequester ninety percent of its carbon dioxide, demonstrating that we can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that threaten the world's climate while supporting new jobs and economic growth.

Each element of the PurGen One plant has been successfully proven at scale, including the safety and permanency of carbon dioxide storage.

Coal gasification has been in use since the early 1800's and there have been thousands of successful coal gasification plants built throughout the world. Gas-fired combined cycle power plants have been built and operated successfully since the 1960's. In the early 1990's these gasification plants began to include combined cycle power generation plants to become Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plants. The earliest reliable and successful commercial IGCC is the Tampa Electric Polk County plant, a 250MW single-gasifier facility operating since the fall of 1997. In Japan, electric power companies, in conjunction with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries have been operating a 200 t/d IGCC pilot plant since the early '90s. In September 2007 they started up a 250MW commercial plant in Nakaso. This Nakaso plant currently is operating with one of the best availability records in the industry—over 95 percent.

The Sleipner Project, located in the North Sea of Norway, has successfully sequestered over 1 million tons of CO2 per year for over 12 years. The only substantial difference between the Sleipner field and the PurGen One field is that the Project team has identified formations—well-explored formations—that are approximately twice as deep and under a cap rock structure that is substantially thicker than those at Sleipner. Combined, these features make the PurGen One field more dependable than the most proven and successful sequestration field in the world for long term storage of carbon dioxide.

Climate and energy experts from Professors Robert Sokolow and Stephen Pacala at Princeton University to Nobel Laureate and Energy Secretary Steven Chu have recognized that even with aggressive implementation of wind, solar, and energy efficiency measures, we as a nation cannot achieve the reductions in greenhouse gases needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change without broad deployment of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Notably, the goals set forth in the New Jersey's Global Warming Response Act also cannot be achieved without CCS.

Several local environmental organizations are opposing PurGen One. For example, the New Jersey Sierra Club has been opposing the plant, even though the national Sierra Club's policy on CCS ( PDF 581 KB) is not one of opposition. Simply put, the groups opposing PurGen One believe coal should have absolutely no role in America's energy future. Most scientists and energy experts view this as simply unrealistic. As President Obama's Secretary of Energy Steven Chu stated recently in the September 25, 2005 issue of Science Magazine ( PDF 192 KB): "The United States possesses one-quarter of the known coal supply, and the United States, Russia, China and India account for two-thirds of the reserves. "It is highly unlikely that any of these countries will turn their back on coal anytime soon, and for this reason, the capture and storage of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel plants must be aggressively pursued." On October 12, 2009, Secretary Chu issued a call to action ( PDF 291 KB) in which he called for "widespread affordable deployment" of CCS technology.

For further information, see What the Experts Think.

Yes. On January 27, 2010, the Linden City Council unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding (MOU) supporting the redevelopment of the former DuPont site for the PurGen One plant. The MOU commits the City to supporting the proposed PurGen One plant in the permitting process, and funds the City's retention of an independent expert to verify PurGen's One's compliance with public safety and environmental standards. Notably, the Council took this action after an extensive public process, in which an earlier version of the MOU was rejected and the MOU was revised to address community concerns.

Carbon dioxide is what we exhale from our lungs after each breath, so it is a constant presence the air around us. Carbon dioxide in concentration has become a problem because most manufacturing and power plants, as well as most automobiles, release all of their carbon dioxide at high concentration directly to the atmosphere, where it causes real harm to the earth's climate and oceans. By capturing carbon dioxide and permanently storing large volumes of it nearly two miles beneath the ocean floor, PurGen One will reduce the threat carbon dioxide presents to our climate and oceans.

Roughly one-third of the carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere from existing power plants and other sources is absorbed by the shallow ocean, where it does real harm to the ocean's living resources through acidification, interference with shell formation in crustaceans, and other adverse impacts. By capturing and storing carbon dioxide from electricity production in a rock formation two miles below the ocean floor, where there is no marine life, PurGen One stops the current cycle of ocean dumping of carbon dioxide from electricity production.

There was a sudden and catastrophic release of carbon dioxide from Lake Nyos, in Cameroon, in 1986. This natural phenomenon occurred when water at the bottom of the lake, saturated with carbon dioxide from volcanic activity, suddenly vented its carbon dioxide near a populated area. This carbon dioxide occurred naturally, and was not the result of carbon storage.

The carbon dioxide from PurGen One will not be stored in surface waters, as occurred through natural geologic processes in Cameroon, but will be stored in a rock formation covered by nearly two miles of cap rock that will prevent any escape, even in the event of an earthquake or other cataclysmic event. In addition, this rock formation and all carbon dioxide stored by PurGen One will be more than seventy miles from any inhabited areas.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has classified portions of New Jersey as "non-attainment" for soot and smog. This means that the certain counties, including Union County where Linden is located, do not meet the EPA standards for clean air. The cause of this air pollution is not local. The poor air quality in New Jersey and the rest of the Northeast is caused by dirty, old coal plants located in the Midwest. The prevailing wind direction carries this pollution to the Northeast.

New Jersey currently imports nearly a third of its power from these dirty upwind power plants. Many of these plants are not controlled for soot, smog, or toxic mercury, and their emissions affect nearly every resident in northern New Jersey.

By establishing a clean power generation facility in northern New Jersey, PurGen One will reduce New Jersey's dependence on dirty coal plants both in-state and out-of-state. The shutdown of these older plants through cleaner plants like PurGen One is New Jersey's best hope for cleaner, healthier air.

Of course, the greatest contribution PurGen One brings to air pollution control is the sequestration of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas which causes global warming. Not only will we sequester 90 percent of our carbon dioxide emissions, we also will have the capability of taking carbon dioxide from other nearby sources to sequester that also.

There will likely be either no change, or an increase, in property values in Linden as a result of the plant. The PurGen One plant will positively contribute to the local tax base, benefiting local schools and other public services, and will be a source of high paying jobs. Furthermore, the plant avoids many of the concerns commonly associated with the use of industrial property: we will not increase truck traffic and we will meet state and Linden noise regulations

During the PurGen One 5-year construction period, the Project will create over 9,000 jobs. At peak, we will employ 2,225 union construction workers on site. In addition to the construction jobs at the PurGen One site, the Project will support over 5,000 jobs in the local community.

PurGen One represents an enormous investment in the local economy. The Project will create $1.2 billion of employment income in Union County, New Jersey during the 5-year construction period and, in addition, bring as much as $1.6 billion to the local economy. Once construction is complete, PurGen One will continue to support over 350 permanent jobs and $164 million of local economic output annually.

The State of New Jersey and the City of Linden both have conservative noise regulations aimed at keeping residential areas quiet. These regulations require that the plant meet 65 decibels (dB) at the property line, 65 dB at residential properties during the day, and 50 dB at residential properties at night. By way of reference, 65 db sound like a typical speaking voice, 50 dB sound like a dishwasher running in the next room or moderate rainfall on foliage. The closest residential area to the site is the Tremley neighborhood which is located approximately 4,100 feet west of the site. I-95 runs between the site and this neighborhood.

No. The plant will use a flare to burn gas that, during transient conditions, is not used in the power plant. However, unlike other plants that use elevated flares, PurGen One is designed with fully enclosed ground flares. The flare will not be visible from outside the plant, and will not even be visible inside the facility.

PurGen One will be located at the site of a former chemical facility that operated for over a hundred years; the development of the PurGen One plant is accelerating cleanup of this idle brownfield site, which is not appropriate for residential or recreational uses. The immediate neighbors of the plant include an existing conventional power plant and a refinery, both of which may be able to use PurGen One's pipeline to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions as technology evolves. A site with both water and rail access for shipping, and proximity to the offshore sequestration point, PurGen One's site is ideally suited to this project.

"Environmental Justice" is a term that refers to the concern for minority and low-income communities that have borne disproportionate exposure to environmental and public health burdens from industrial facilities. Based on the most recent census data, Linden is neither a low-income nor a minority community as that term has been used with respect to environmental justice. Linden's poverty rate is lower than that of both Union County and New Jersey overall, and its population is an integrated one, almost evenly balanced between white and minority residents.

The PurGen One sponsors agree that there really is no "clean coal," "clean gas" or clean fossil fuel plant of any kind right now, because none of the so-called "clean coal" plants deals with greenhouse gas pollution. That is what distinguishes PurGen One, and the reason we do not consider this a "clean coal" plant in the way the coal industry uses the term.

We are very encouraged that the new EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, has taken steps to end mountaintop mining, which we also strongly oppose. The most likely coal source for PurGen One is Pennsylvania, where that practice is not an issue. PurGen One has committed to make sure any coal contract we enter does not support mountaintop removal mining.

PurGen One has the most favorable conditions for achieving a 90 percent sequestration on a utility-scale project in an early time frame when compared to others. That said, the urgency of the climate crisis means that it is appropriate for the government to invest in a portfolio of projects piloting CCS in different markets and regions, including FutureGen.

Carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants are being absorbed—effectively dumped—in the shallow ocean today, where they are contributing to acidification and a series of real harms to the ocean's resources. This is a form of industrializing the ocean with real and continuing harm to the environment. Geologic sequestration, as used by PurGen One, actually reduces the loading of carbon in the ocean, and stores carbon dioxide in rock formations deep below the ocean bottom where it will be stable and closely monitored. The only ocean impact from our plant—other than the beneficial reduction in carbon loading—is the burial of the pipeline, which is short-term and has no significant impact on the marine environment.

One advantage of having the sequestration site 70 miles offshore is that we are in exclusively federal jurisdiction for the only component of the project presenting novel regulatory issues. And the Obama administration, as a policy matter, has shown significant leadership in addressing the regulatory issues surroundng CCS. On all other components of the project—from the power plant to the pipeline—the regulatory issues are quite conventional.

In our view, the Sleipner project in the North Sea—where carbon has been sequestered in very similar formations for more than a decade -- proved concept in terms of geologic sequestration beneath the ocean seabed. The only difference in our case is that our target geologic formation is much deeper than at Sleipner, because the added pressure and lower temperature at that depth give an additional margin of safety that the material will remain safely sequestered.

Currently, imaging technology is available to monitor the CO2 within the pore space of the deep sandstone quite effectively. For over a decade, close monitoring of sequestration at Sleipner has confirmed that the carbon dioxide in formation has remained stable precisely as predicted by scientific modeling. Long before the first carbon dioxide is injected by PurGen One, we will have to demonstrate to the federal government's expert geologists that the carbon dioxide storage will be safe and permanent.

No. Quite the opposite. It actually is easier for a smaller developer to take on a complex project like this. The Astoria Energy Plant the SCS Energy team developed was the first independent power plant built start-to-finish in New York after the Enron collapse, and during the same period the utilities and energy companies with big balance sheets were too risk-averse to do anything but wait. And, of course, companies with big investments in coal or nuclear generation may not be too enthused about an early demonstration that CCS is practicable.

No. PurGen One will be selling its power at the market price, and the addition of PurGen One's 175MW of power in an area of high congestion will result in lower electricity prices for northern New Jersey consumers. This price-dampening effect is likely to increase once RGGI or a replacement federal cap-and-trade regime is put in place, because existing plants will have added costs of compliance (i.e. buying emission allowances) that PurGen One will not have.

Every expert who has looked at the challenge of stabilizing US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has concluded that no single set of approaches can solve the problem, and every expert has identified sequestration as an essential component of a GHG stabilization strategy. CCS cannot succeed in meeting the challenge without comparable attention to energy efficiency and renewables, and conversely those strategies cannot fully succeed unless CCS is implemented. When you look at the international GHG challenge, it is even more clear that CCS is a essential to reducing carbon emissions in countries whose economies depend on continuing use of coal. The multiple strategies needed to stabilize and reduce greenhouse gas images can be seen in a graphic illustration developed by NRDC.